Michał Bzinkowski
Przekładaniec, Numer 26 – Przekład mistrzów, 2012, s. 179 - 193
https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864PC.12.011.0844What Do These Ithacas Mean? In the Margins of Cavafy’s Ithaca in Polish
This article analyses all Polish translations of the well-known poem by Constantine P. Cavafy (1863– 1933), Ithaca (Ιθάκη). Comparing the beginnings of the fi rst stanza and the last stanza, which are fundamental to the comprehension of the poem, I point to the main differences between the original and its Polish versions. In my analysis I concentrate on the idiosyncrasies of Cavafy’s language, so challenging to translators of this poetry. My parallel reading of the translations by Zygmunt Kubiak, Nikos Chadzinikolau, Czesław Miłosz and Antoni Libera reveals striking discrepancies between the original text and the proposed versions, most noticeably Libera’s.
Michał Bzinkowski
Przekładaniec, Numer 18-19 – Antiqua ac nova, 2007, s. 168 - 191
The 20th-century Greek poet Yorgos Seferis (the penname of Yorgos Seferiadis,
1900–1971) is considered to be one of the most influential Modern Greek poets.
However, his hermetic, at times obscure, poetry is not widely read outside Greece and
English-speaking countries, even though it was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1963. The
article discusses Seferis’s use of antiquity and investigates the ways in which Modern
Greek can draw inspiration from ancient literary sources. It attempts to define the
function of mythological allusions in the poems translated for “Przekładaniec” as well
as presents some of the difficulties the translator of Modern Greek poetry may come
across.
Michał Bzinkowski
Przekładaniec, Numer 18-19 – Antiqua ac nova, 2007, s. 142 - 167